Author Archives: Sheila

Random Thought Tuesday 6/4/2013

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  1. I knew that the last 2 weeks of school would be busy but I didn’t realize we have swim team practice every night and cheerleading on Tuesdays!
  2. Coupon trip to Walmart last week saved 42%- I consider this excellent for Walmart! In addition we had a super nice cashier who didn’t question one of my coupons!
  3. Haley received her acceptance letter to Davidson County Community College today!
  4. Lily last day of school will be Friday as her teacher told the class last week that Monday was an optional day. So they really did not have to come then.
  5. Haley has to take 3 of 4 exams and is going to be driving my car the rest of the week.
  6. Haley’s car is getting a new windshield on Thursday and she should be driving it by the weekend
  7. Our 2005 red minivan is up for sale.. I hope it sells quickly!
  8. Kendall is so stubborn but after focusing her in the pool tonight-she really enjoyed swim team let’s hope tonight was the end of the stubborn streak
  9. One of our closet organizers fell off the wall today but Matt was able to repair for free!
  10. I am so tired that I am headed to bed soon….

May in Review- A Day Late

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Financial goals: May has been a month to re-evaluate, change and move forward on this goal. My plan is to start at least bi-weekly updates on our budget to keep us focused forward and to share real world numbers.

  • Pay off Lawn mower by March 2014, so no interest is charged. Only made the minimal payment this month but  this is a new focus so hopefully, I can catch up and pay this off my December.
  • Pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June– Changing this to December.
  • Emergency fund to $2000–  I was able to get the fund up to $500. I am content to let it sit at this mark and slow increase as the debt goes away.
  • Maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system – Still working well!
  • Groceries: Spend $600 or less a month Goal met. I am not counting our trip to Costco on Friday night or the Zaycon food order in May but both will be counted in June. We are actually $20 under for the month!
  • Gas- I am adding this category. The goal each month is to spend $450 or less for gas.  We spent $400 this month. Starting in June, any left over amount will be moved to the Auto fund. This is basically a repair/maintenance fund in place because the vehicles we own are older and repairs are expected.

Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month I have 13 post for May. My plan was to post this last night but it just did not happen so something to work on.  Still have not met this goal for the year but will continue to keep working toward it.

Devotions: Goal is 5 a week   Goal Met! I am really enjoying my morning time.

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.. This continues to be a daily struggle for me.

Budget Update and New Series

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I have decided in order to keep myself more accountable that I am going to update our budget numbers at least bi-weekly when I get pain. I hope that this will keep me focused on the goal as well as share some of my own excitement as we approach the goal of becoming debt free! So to start….

  • Our Emergency Fund is currently sitting at $500!!
  • We purchased today, a new to us 1999 Minivan with less than half the miles of our current one. After considering this options carefully and doing research we have discovered that we should be able to sell our current 2005 Minivan for the same price as we purchase this one.  One of the major upgrade besides the mileage is that this van is a 6 cylinder as opposed to our current 4 cylinder one.
  • Auto insurance will decrease by $75 one we are able to sell our current Minivan
  • Debt (excluding mortgage) is sitting at 10k, however 1/4 of that should be erased when we sell our 2005 Minivan.
  • For the month of June, we will have a zero balance budget, meaning that our expenses and income are even. Any “extra” or found money will be used to bring the debt load down even more.
  • All of Zach’s medical expenses have been paid! In addition, I have finally managed to pay off all outstanding medical debt!

I am really excited to see this journey speed up as we head downhill and finally our goal is in sight and manageable!

 

Wordless Wednesday

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How I Spent my Saturday~ May 25th

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We started out yesterday with a trip to Harris Teeter, I had noticed on Friday that they were having an awesome sale on Milk and Eggs so after about an hour of preparation, on Friday night, we headed to Winston.  Matt was even more excited after we arrived and found an awesome deal on whole bean coffee. We spent 42.30 and saved 79.33 or 65%. $20 of the $42 we spent was on coffee, so now Matt has at least 4 bags of whole beans.  We have not been to the store on Strafford Drive before but I was so impressed with their customer services that I will definitely be headed there again. On Friday, I loaded several coupons to my vic card including two free items. I did ask the cashier up front to ring so because I wanted to make sure that everything was correct. She was awesome, I realized before handing over my coupons that my vic coupons did not come off so the manager rang them in without a question. I also had 3-5 printable coupons that did not scan. An assistance manager rang these in for me again without even a cross look or word. I was so excited to have a transaction go so smoothly with some many different problems!  I seriously  my have to email the company to say thank you for the awesome customer service!

We headed over to Krispy Kreme to reward the kids for good behavior and even stopped by my BF house to pick up a television for our playroom. We have now been given 4 television,3 of which work!  I am so thankful because the one in the playroom makes my mornings so much easier as I can sleep till the alarm clock rings and the kids enjoy some tv.

The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking several meal for next week in addition to freezing some milk and strawberries that we purchased.

The highlight for the day? Matt and I were able to go out on a date including see “The Great Grasby” at the movies. We rarely d

Awards Day for Class of 2013

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On Friday May 24th, myself, both my parents, Amanda and my sister-in-law attend Haley’s Awards Day. This is very different from most of these days as it was for the class of 2013 only. The seniors who will graduate in 3 weeks walked in wearing caps and gowns. I took my camera and extra batteries, however most of the pictures ended up very blurry . Let me just restate how upset I am that my camera failed!

Haley actually received recognition for several items, she was awarded an FFA scholarship, a white cord (Science Academy) and was recognized for maintaining a B average for her “track” during her high school career. In my opinion this was actually more important than Graduation as they announced all the scholarship received by this class, over 1 million worth, and where each student was planning to attend college. I am so very proud of Haley but so disappointed in my lack of pictures!

 

Wordless Wednesday Square Foot Garden

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We finished with most of the planting last Friday evening. I ended up purchasing most of the plants as only cucumbers grew from the seeds we planted!

 

Count Your Blessings

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This has always been one of my favorite hymns and I really feel the need to be thankful today so I am going to just “count my blessing name them one by one”….

  • Matt
  • Each one of my five children Amanda, Haley, Lily, Kendall and Zach…they each are a blessing from God and I love each one the same!
  • My job… yes it is stressful but I still go to work each day to a job that I really enjoy and I get to work with my best friend!
  • Time to spend at home working in the yard and just being with my kids. This past weekend, I spent more time with the little ones than without. I enjoy working outside and then just hanging out in front of the television.
  • Central Air- I remember many of the years that I struggled to get the window unit clean and work. And I am even more thankful for the heat in the winter time. I still recall the winter that we ran out of oil for the old heater several time and had to sleep at my parents just to stay warm.
  • Clothing for each of the kids and even better a line item in the budget to purchase new clothing if need. In the past few years, I have been blessed with lots of second hand clothing so the need is not as great. But again I can recall a year that I had to ask for money just to buy clothing for Haley.
  • Brothers and sisters in Christ that are praying for me daily.  I will never have to face difficult time alone… God is always with me but he has also supplied hands and feet in our church family.

CVS Awesome Trip

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Matt made a pretty interesting statement yesterday.  “CVS is more of a marathon, not a sprint.” I have made two trip to CVS in the past two-day and have done amazingly!  I will preference it by saying that Haley “needed” make up earlier in the week so she asked for some coupons and brought her 5 ECB back for me to you.  So I did begin with 5 ECB and ended today with zero. I spent $15 and saved $68 or 82%.  I am most impressed with the items I purchased: 10  2 L Diet Cokes  (0.99) each, 2 large bags of M&Ms, 2 boxes of movie candy, 2 bottle of Dove Hair Spray, 2 containers of Shampoo, A razor, a container of shaving gel, and 2 bottles of Irish Spring Body wash, These are all items that will be easily used in the next month. I know that I need to stock back up on razors so I am going to watch the sales over the next couple of weeks to see what I can come up!